Citation

Strayer DL, Drews FA. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 2007; 16(3): 128-131.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article reports on a study undertaken to examine the effects of hands-free cell-phone conversations on simulated driving. The authors found that even when participants looked directly at objects in the driving environment, they were less likely to create a durable memory of those objects if they were conversing on a cell phone. This pattern was obtained for objects of both high and low relevance, suggesting that very little semantic analysis of the objects occurs outside the restricted focus of attention. Moreover, in-vehicle conversations do not interfere with driving as much as cell-phone conversations do, perhaps because drivers are better able to synchronize the processing demands of driving with in-vehicle conversations than with cell-phone conversations. The authors conclude that their findings support an inattention-blindness interpretation, contending that the disruptive effects of cell-phone conversations on driving are due in large part to the diversion of attention from driving to the phone conversation.


Keywords: Driver distraction;